About this Belonging

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A simple mahogany table.

Phillis Wheatley's simple mahogany desk.

Feet of a table that are claw-like around a ball foot.

Claw-like feet of Phillis Wheatley's desk.

Small drawer with a round handle of a mahogany table.

Close up of drawer and top of Phillis Wheatley's desk.

Details About this Belonging Maker: Unknown
Location: Charlestown, Massachusetts
Date: Ca. 1760
Medium: Wood, Mahogany
Size: 72.5 cm x 89 cm x 41.5 cm
Contributor: Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society

The folding mahogany table is thought to have been used by Phillis Wheatley while composing Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Wheatley, while still enslaved, produced the first book of poetry to be published by a Black American (1773). Wheatley’s stature rose during the Revolutionary era, where she was considered a celebrity. The writing desk within the Massachusetts Historical Society’s collection and the exact origin of the desk is unconfirmed, though it may have been given to Phillis by the family of her enslavers and was later sold at auction to pay her debts. What ideas of Freedom and Unfreedom do we suppose Phillis Wheatley contemplated at her writing desk?

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